Dead Space: Ignition Review

This minigame-laden preview feels like a desperate cash-in on a popular title.

Hacking minigames tend to be terrible. So why would anyone decide to make a game that is entirely comprised of them? More specifically, why does Dead Space Ignition exist?

Well, there's one reason: it sets up the story of Dead Space 2, showing the initial infection of the space station Sprawl through the eyes of engineer Franco and his girlfriend Sarah. It's all done in the style of a motion comic with exactly two choose-your-own-adventure decisions that take the characters through different storylines leading up to the finale...which is always the same.

Click the image above to check out all Dead Space Ignition
screens.

Obviously, if you want to see every possible outcome of each decision in the story, you'll have to play through the game multiple times. I just can't see why you'd ever want to. The voice acting is boring and stilted, the art is almost offensively rushed, and the animations (if you can call them that) are barely more than manipulations of static drawings. Running is simulated by bouncing the drawings up and down, breathing by stretching and compacting chests, and shrugging by stretching shoulders up and down. It all feels like a cheap '80s Saturday morning cartoon.

And then you get to the minigames. There are only three in total, each of which appears about a half-dozen times through the course of the very short story (it only took about an hour and 20 minutes on my first playthrough). There's the Trace Route game, essentially a Light Cycle-style race, System Override, a tower defense game where you're attacking rather than defending, and Hardware Crack, a mirror puzzle game.

Click the image above to check out all Dead Space Ignition
screens.

Now, if any of them were actually executed well, they might be an enjoyable diversion to sitting in front of your door waiting for Dead Space 2 to be delivered. Instead, Trace Route races, due to imprecise controls and constantly rotating levels, tend to be infuriatingly difficult; System Override games, while having an interesting concept, end in simple spamming unit spawns until everything's dead; Hardware Crack games, on the other hand, might seem to require some brain power at first glance, but the solutions are so convoluted that I got very little satisfaction out of completing them. They're all poorly designed, boring, and completely uninspired. Just like most hacking minigames!

Moral of the story: Unless you're a huge Dead Space fan and absolutely can't contain yourself around anything remotely related to that universe, skip out on Dead Space Ignition. Or, I guess, if you really want to unlock the relatively cool armor for Isaac in Dead Space 2, and got Ignition for free with your preorder, then it might be worth completing the game. But you've been warned, there's simply not that much fun to be had here.

Tried the demo, thought it sucked

Yet I still was on the fence. Now that I've read the review, I'm glad I didn't fell for this cash in. I don't know about the entire game, but from the demo you can really get a feeling for the very basic gameplay that composes the first type of "puzzles", and the artwork is just plain horrible.

Wow

Best argument against motion comics

The art couldn't be less friendly to the motion technology. I've seen a few motion comics that worked - even the conversion of the first comic was far more effective (though it probably helped that Ben Templesmith's art is much, much better than Ignition's) - but this one fails in every respect. It's clear that the comic wasn't drawn with motion in mind at all, so the animators had nothing to work with. There's so much odd warping of the art to simulate expressions, and really in the end the motion detracts from the "game."

The minigames are pretty poor, and really don't feel like anything more than annoying roadblocks. Nothing fun about them, and there's a lot of frustration involved.

Really, the only reason to "play" this is the story, which if you're a big Dead Space fan like me, you want to know as much as possible. Hopefully going through this will provide some nice insight to Dead Space 2's story, and doesn't totally fail to achieve relevance like, say, the Mass Effect iPhone game did.

review of this review

Looks like you hated it so much you didn't care to be accurate about it. There are 4 story lines, not "exactly 2" because you count the last set of options before the end, not the first set at the start. Two initial choices that splinter into two more choices. Am I being nitpicky? Well, when the review is just as bad as the art in the game, then no.

Do you know what a Light Cycle race is? At no point in Trace Route are you able to cut off the path of the other connections with your own path. This was more like a 2D Mario Kart where you can drop traps while you race the other connections on a linear track.

Even more amusing is your lack of skill at Trace Route. Infuriatingly difficult? Are you fucking kidding me? This game developer took on the challenge of the puzzle minigame and added new twists that actually make it more fun than other games of the past -- you have difficulty with that, so the puzzle game sucks? You suck. The controls are not imprecise, they're very precise, which is probably your problem. If the tracks in Trace Route didn't rotate it would be less difficult and less fun. Challenge is what makes a game fun. You couldn't rise to the challenge.

As for both System Override and Hardware Crack, you need to take a closer look at what this game offers. If you're just playing through the game for the story, then yeah these can be pretty easy once you're familiar with them. That's if you're just trying to complete them. If you're trying to beat a time on the leaderboard, then it takes quite a bit of strategy in both these games to lower your score.

System Override changes from a no-look-button-mashing game to one where you have to determine which of your attacks to release, in which order, and which areas on the map to strike with the electrical charge. Not for the faint of mind, but definitely for the more mentally inclined. If you don't enjoy Ignition, you just don't enjoy competing in puzzle games. Or you're not mentally inclined.Probably both. (An hour an twenty minutes your first time through? Really? Wow, that's slow even for the first time.)

Hardware Crack is even more of a challenge when you're racing the clock, and other players, too. The new abilities you gain after you complete the game change your approach to even the simpler puzzles. Instead of doing the most obvious solution for the easy ones, you can think about which components on the board to rip out to make the path to the receiver shorter, and you can drop in a projector to hit two receivers at once, all things you couldn't do the first time around on the easy puzzles. The point here is to beat times on the leaderboard, not justify your apathy for puzzle games.

Why did you even review this game if you don't like puzzles? You're clearly not very good at them. I agree the art and voice acting are pretty hurt, but I also agree it was only $5. You seem to think you're entitled to a lot of quality in a $5 game. Since the point of the game is the puzzles, they let you easily skip past the crappy cutscenes, so you never really have to experience them if you don't want to.

You want to compare Case Zero? That game was obviously a deleted level from the game production that got recycled into a demo. They probably made some, not all, money back on time spent on material that would never be used in the final game. Either way, that game is more of a demo than a minigame.

What both Ignition and Case Zero have in common is that you can earn things that carry over into the major release when you complete it. If you preordered Dead Space 2, then this game cost you nothing and all you got in the end was some cool shit for the full release and a little exercise for your sluggish brain. Complaining about anything else just makes you sound whiny.

Bottom line: stop reviewing games that you suck at, because you suck at reviewing those games.

HAHAHAHA

MINDILATOR's poignant, and accurate analysis of this crappy game review has convinced me to pick up this game.I like to get the FACTS about a game when reading a review- not sarcastic and lame one-liners.

Waste of Money

Oh! Look!

Someone on a gaming website disagrees with a reviewer and wrote a heartfelt essay questioning said reviewer's gaming skills. Seriously, I never get tired of these "review of a review" posts. It's like whoever writes them believe that the Higher Ups who run 1Up will read it and say "Clearly this guy understands gaming! Fire that reviewer and hire this nobody!"

It's okay that someone else doesn't like your horrible purchase, dude. Nobody liked Kung Pow! Enter The Fist but I bought that shit anyway because I thought it was funny. Does it say something about me? Certainly. That movie is terrible. Am I going to go on metacritic and slam everyone who doesn't agree with me? Of course not.

Harsh...

but I have to agree with Mindilator. Without all the snide comments directed at the reviewer (Taylor Cocke), his review is more accurate and better. And I have to wonder why someone who thinks hacking minigames is even playing a game that is essentially a bunch of hacking minigames?

Yes, poorly done

No it's poorly done because it's POORLY DONE, characters only have definition in like a quarter of their scenes, the proportions are often downright bizarre (not just cartoony but BIZARRE), the motion effects are unbelievable cheap and everyone looks like they just got an eyeful of the nazi's opening Pandora's Box.

Well...

I know at least last time, the first Dead Space motion comic was just taking the 6 issue Dead Space comic by a guy who's art style is just the sketchy style to begin with. They just made videos out of the art w/ people saying the lines.

The base art for Ignition isn't as sketchy, but they still are just doing flash animation morphs to it that at times can look goofy.

Artstyle Vs. Poorly done

Now the dead space motion comic was just a different artstyle and was fine in my book it had a gritty can't make out whats going on feel. But i can see its not for everyone but again it was a type of art style.

Now this is just poorly done if you watch any other motion comics you could see how poor this dead space 2 motion comics is. Watch the Uncharted 2 eye of indra motion comic and you will see fine work. Watch a cut-scene from the metal gear solid peace walker and you will see good work. This Ignition just seems like they toke still art and tried to turn it into a motion comic.

Amazingly Amateurish

Was actually interested in this because I'm a big fan of the franchise. But this production is just plain ugly, even for five bucks. Everyone's face looks like it's melting.
Maybe as a preorder bonus I'll suffer through this title, otherwise I'll just pretend it doesn't exist. Suits me fine.

Why couldn't they have put "Extraction" on XBL and PSN instead?

I know the PS3 fanboys get it, but it has standard controller support so there's no reason a 360 version wouldn't work, and after the Wii version flopped they could use all the exposure they can get. That would have been a much better tie-over for the fans than this ill-conceived motion comic hacking game. I'm sure all will be forgiven when Dead Space 2 actually arrives, of course...

Gotta agree, for the most part

For a free pre-order bonus, I didn't completely hate it. I thought the two main characters were relatively likeable. But the mini games themselves just aren't fun and the motion comic is incredibly poorly done. I hope next time something like this comes up they take a look at Case Zero.